One of the major causes of death in the world is cancer. It is estimated that cancer will potentially lead to 12 million deaths in 2030. Chemotherapeutics are widely used in cancer therapy, but their efficacies are often undermined due to their serious side effects.
The improvement of targeted therapeutics against cancer, with enhanced discrimination between tumor cells and noncancerous counterparts, is one of the major objectives of current anticancer research. Most chemotherapeutic agents do not preferentially accumulate at the tumor sites. Also, toxic side effects can limit dose escalation of current anticancer drugs, leading to incomplete tumor response, early disease relapse, and in due course, the development of drug resistance. Targeting via peptide ligands that binds to antigen or Epidermal Growth Factor Receptors (EGFR), is considered as an appropriate approach to improve the selective toxicity of the anticancer therapeutics.
In order to improve the therapeutic indexes of chemotherapeutic agents based on peptide active ingredients, there is a need in the art for the development of new therapeutic agents to specifically deliver drugs to the tumor tissues and selectively act on the target tissue without side effects.